Dive Brief:
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Cyber Monday was Amazon’s single biggest shopping day in its history, with more products ordered worldwide than any other day, according to a company press release. Amazon customers globally ordered more than 18 million toys and more than 13 million fashion items on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the company said.
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Amazon.com's best-selling Cyber Monday items included its new Echo Dot, an AncestryDNA ethnicity test, Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones for Apple, Michelle Obama's memoir, Jenga and the 6-Quart Instant Pot, the company said. For the whole weekend — Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday— bestsellers were the new Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote and the Fire 7 tablet with Alexa.
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Black Friday sales from small and medium-sized businesses selling through Amazon worldwide rose more than 20%, the company also said.
Dive Insight:
Amazon benefitted from Whole Foods at Thanksgiving this year, and customers keep Alexa busy.
The Amazon-owned grocery chain sold a record number of turkeys, and "more customers than ever" had them delivered this year through the company’s AmazonFresh and Prime Now delivery services. The e-commerce giant is touting its free delivery for all customers with no minimum for the holidays, which the company noted will take five to eight business days.
For free same-day or two-day delivery, however, customers will have to be Prime members, and those customers also have access to one-hour grocery delivery and pickup at Whole Foods.
Sales globally surged on Amazon across the whole weekend, culminating on Cyber Monday, despite the fact that many popular items, especially in beauty and non-Amazon branded electronics, were found cheaper elsewhere, according to a report from media and commerce platform Narrativ emailed to Retail Dive.
Amazon said customers asked Alexa to set nearly twice as many timers on Thanksgiving Day than any other day this year, and asked the voice assistant for nearly twice as many recipes and other bits of cooking advice. But the company did not note in its release how many customers made gift purchases through Alexa during the weekend.
